It was easier to like boys, so that's what she did, even when the boys tried to hurt her.
But then again, the girl hurt her, too, didn't she? She was happiest when she was around Anthy, but Anthy still had made her life so difficult. Oh, so difficult.
It was easier to embrace the part of her life that was easier. It was easier for Utena to pretend she only wanted boys and that was all she needed, even when a part of her was screaming that that wasn't the case. Even when she knew it felt wrong. What the boys wanted from her was wrong, they wanted a girl she could never be. And what she wanted from them... well, the thing was, she didn't really want anything from them. Anything like that. She just wanted...
What did she want?
Normalcy? She'd tried being normal. She'd tried wearing the costume, playing the part of a normal girl that day, that day when she was separated from Anthy, the day after Touga had defeated her. She'd never been so miserable in her life.
(Was it just that made her miserable, just being forced into that role she could never play, of the normal girl? Or was it about missing Anthy?)
What did she want?
Did she want to have a prince or be a prince? Did she want to be spread out on an older man's sheets, him moving in her like she was a helpless doll, just press the right button and she moans, she whimpers, she cries...
(Tears of ecstasy or tears of despair?)
Or did she want to play more age-appropriate games, that delicate dance with Touga on the roof that late night, him telling her he loved her and holding her and whispering everything every girl in Ohtori Academy dreamed of hearing, everything she'd once dreamed of hearing, but in the harsh morning light of reality it felt so wrong... Less painful than playing the doll, but every bit as fake...
(Why was it fake?)
Juri had exposed something else to the harsh morning light. It had pierced Utena like a dagger, that simple question: "You love her, don't you?" It was like she'd known it somewhere deep down, but had never really wanted to think about it. (She hadn't wanted to want it.) But even then, it was so easy to close up the wound, bury the pain deep beneath, pretend the joy she got from Anthy's presence was simply strong friendship, pretend her drive to protect her wasn't anything but a more intense version of how she felt about Wakaba...
(But wasn't the intensity the point?)
It was easier to pretend, even when all the pretending did was hurt. Even when all it did was just make everything worse, create new wounds by letting the boys hurt her, violate her, bit-by-bit destroy her... So that's what she did.
It took a real piercing, with a sword, to finally set the truth free. It took that to let it pour out so much that Utena could never push it back in, could never close up the wound.
It took Anthy almost killing her to make Utena realize that she loved her.
(It was always about Anthy.)
She wanted. She knew what she wanted. Now. But was it too late...?